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EU Election 2014

Not to be confused with any of the other years… AHEM! So, most know me as being a political person to start with, but this was probably the first election where I cared more about who was voted for over how many people I know actually voted. A fact that most could observe on Twitter and Facebook.

Now, depending on who you are in the UK right now, your reactions to the results will have varied somewhat. If you happen to be the BBC, you would have been crowing from the rooftops about how UKIP’s wins were an “earthquake” – and if you’re looking at the fact that they gained 161 seats in England on top of the two seats they already had, you wouldn’t be mistaken in saying that they had a massive increase.

To be frank, my general feeling is that any number of UKIP’s ilk elected beyond a negative amount is nothing pleasant. The only consolation is that not a single council up for grabs this election has a UKIP majority. The downside: some of them are an even split between them and one or more others (usually Labour or Conservative). Given that councillors of theirs have a stronger attendance streak (not that it would take much) of their MEP variety, these councils are in for some pretty nasty politics. I suppose I can be grateful our council wasn’t up for grabs this turn, but that is only a small comfort given that I live in a world where the big picture matters.

Meanwhile Labour is basically frothing at the mouth over the fact that they have gotten the most passing of nods on to their gains (claiming 6 more councils in England, or a total of 338 more seats). This, paired with the occasional remark in the twitter-sphere from them and Lib-Dem supporters about how UKIP actually had fewer votes this year over the year before.

Which leads me to conclude one thing: there are actually FEWER voters who turned up overall in the UK. I’ll say it again (caps for emphasis): IT TOOK FEWER VOTES FOR UKIP TO GET INTO POWER BECAUSE PEOPLE DIDN’T GO OUT AND FREAKING VOTE.

Honestly, this just blows my mind: what excuse do you have? Can’t make it to the polling place? the things open at 7AM and stay open until 10PM and if that isn’t convenient enough for you, you could have filed an absentee ballot ahead of time. This boycotting the vote doesn’t actually help anyone or anything; all it does is ensure that YOU aren’t represented and won’t EVER be represented in government. ‎(ノ ゜Д゜)ノ ︵ ┻━┻